🚨Middle East on Edge: What Happens If Israel Strikes Iran?

As U.S. embassies evacuate and military bases brace for impact, a familiar question resurfaces: Are we on the brink of war with Iran?

This week, the U.S. began shrinking its diplomatic and military footprint across the Middle East, a preemptive move amid fears of an imminent Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nonessential personnel are being pulled from Iraq. Military families are being offered voluntary departure across the region. And emergency action committees are lighting up cables between Washington and missions from Baghdad to Baku.

It figures that, of course, tensions would flare as my husband and I finally take our honeymoon, six months after our wedding, here in Aruba, country number 94 on my journey to 100. For the first time in years, I left my laptop behind. So yes I’m filing via the Substack app on my phone. If the formatting is funny, it’s my first time trying this.

Back in Washington, I recently found myself in urgent care. The nurse checking my vitals had a Persian name. She recognized mine, too.

She had just fled Iran.

A decorated doctor who treated the wounded during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, she had been interrogated and threatened by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Her crime? Healing people. Now, she is starting over in exile. Grateful for safety. Longing for home.

Until I lived across the Persian Gulf from my father’s homeland, I never fully understood the word exile. I was born in America. My mother is Sicilian-American. I didn’t even realize I was “other” until I was six and learning Farsi to speak to my aunt, a war refugee who didn’t speak English.

This year, during Nowruz, the Persian New Year, I felt something shift. I was filled with rage. As the regime cracked down on Iranians dancing in the streets, I found myself dancing alone in protest. Joy, it seems, has become a revolutionary act.

And it’s working.

Iran’s regime thrives on what I call the politics of sadness, if you’re too broke, tired, or depressed to fight back, you’re not a threat. But when everything is stripped away, what’s left can be explosive. What’s more dangerous than a population with nothing left to lose?

A source inside Iran recently told me: “I haven’t had power five out of seven days. Two to four hours of electricity a day. My computer adapter is fried. My refrigerator broke, not because it was old, but because the power kept shorting out. I lost $400 worth of food. That’s two months’ salary for most people here.”

And they’re not alone. A nationwide truck drivers’ strike is spreading. The regime is threatening arrests. But the people are cheering them on. In video after video, they say “damet garm” — more power to you.

These aren’t hypotheticals. These are the ingredients of a revolution.

Retired Marine General James L. Jones, who served as President Obama’s national security advisor during Iran’s 2009 Green Movement, recently told me:

“2025 announces itself, potentially, as a year when the Iranian people rise up to remove the regime that has not only worsened their lives, but destabilized the entire region for decades.”

He added:

“The regime’s crimes against humanity are a matter of record. Their determination to develop a nuclear weapon capability is clear. And it would be a mistake for Tehran to conclude that there will be no kinetic consequences for their historically predictable behavior.”

So what is the Trump administration doing?

They’re pulling out diplomats. Cancelling summer travel for military families. And pressing pause on a nuclear deal that once seemed within reach.

And maybe that’s smart.

Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff was supposed to meet Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman this week. That may now be off the table. Trump says he’s “less confident” than before. But he also knows Iran is teetering.

This moment is about more than uranium enrichment. It’s about narrative collapse. When I was reporting for my Iran vs. Israel documentary, I asked Iranian officials why they were at war with Israel. Their answer was one word: Palestine. I explored this in my latest Semafor column: “A Trump Deal for Palestine Could Tame Iran’s Regime”. Of course iranian regional expansionism is about more than Palestine, but here’s the strategic question Trump should be asking: if a Palestinian state were created, does Iran lose its justification to keep attacking Israel?

A fast deal isn’t the answer: the right one, or none at all, might be.

Let’s be clear: legitimizing this regime with sanctions relief or vague promises is dangerous. We know who we’re dealing with.

Take the story of Neda, a survivor of the Evin Prison fire. Her story is being told in a forthcoming animated documentary called That Night, directed by Hoda Sobhani, and one I’m proud to help amplify. Because animation is the only safe way to tell these stories. Filming openly would get someone killed.

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Iranian director Jafar Panahi, long banned from filmmaking and travel, made a defiant return with It Was Just an Accident, a political thriller inspired by his own imprisonment. He won the Palme d’Or. The world is starting to listen.

And maybe, just maybe, 2025 will be the year Iran’s regime finally falls. Maybe, like the battle cry sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death, the next uprising will come from a broken fridge, spoiled food, and a nation that refuses to accept that as normal.

Because joy is a threat. And Iran’s people? They’re done being sad.